Alameda Earth Day Festival This Saturday

On Saturday, April 20, the City of Alameda is hosting an Earth Day Festival from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. at Washington Park (at Central and 8th).

The event offers residents a chance to learn about building a clean, healthy, sustainable world for generations to come.

There will be a pre-festival beach clean-up at Crab Cove. The festival will offer sustainability information, an upcycling team sculpture contest, activities for kids along with live entertainment and music.

Information booths, organic food, and the popular Kid Zone will also be featured.

The annual event is focused on raising awareness about what we all can do to reduce our impacts on the environment, including reducing waste, saving energy, and caring for the all the earth’s creatures.

In addition, local boy and girl scout troops are presenting activities in their Earth Day pavilion to celebrate and highlight the importance of climate protection.

Each troop will help families with different activities throughout the day such as the following:

• Boy Scout Troop 89 "Puzzle Piece Aliens," "Soda Bottle Hornet Catchers," "Faux Cork Housewares"
• Girl Scout Troop 30375 “Planting Seeds in Newspaper Pots”
• Girl Scout Troop 32693 “Reusable Totes Made from Recycled T-shirts”
• Boy Scout Troop 11 “Earth Mosaic,” “Cherry Blossom Trees,” “Bird Feeders Made from Oranges”
• Girl Scout Troop 31901 “Bracelets Made from Newspaper Beads”

The City and Community Action for a Sustainable Alameda (CASA) will also be hosting the Alameda Climate Forum on Wednesday, April 24th at 6:30 p.m. at the Albert H. DeWitt Officers' Club at Alameda Point at 641 West Redline Ave.

The Forum will provide an update on the City’s progress toward reducing greenhouse gas emissions and resources for individual and community actions.

In 2008 the City of Alameda adopted a Local Plan for Climate Protection to reduce Alameda’s carbon emissions to 25 percent below 2005 levels by 2020.

In September 2008 CASA was formed to help achieve that goal and to fulfill one of the top seven goals of the Local Plan for Climate Protection which is to “Develop a multi-faceted community outreach program to increase public awareness and participation in the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions”.

For more information about the 2013 Earth Day Festival, contact the City of Alameda Public Works Department at (510) 747-7930.